'And Then We Sever'

Soon my English master will take this not-so-White-Settler away from you
You are wanting to leave, to grow up, become a man of distinction; your own giant
Before you look to Edinburgh, permanently and look away from your dusky Jo’ in England
Remember how we played.
Your lairds along-side those from England as the ships docked at Liverpool, from West Indian shores
Heaving the carriage up the cliff from want of roads;
You, tending your father’s croft
Me, a decorative trinket for a baronet would break the cane
And knee-locking servitude
And run
All the way from Wigtownshire to Ayrshire, my skinny brown legs, heather-clawed
Nay bother, we’ll meet in the middle

Rob, I am an older freer man, in London now
I sigh memories before the destination board
I looked for you in Edinburgh, in a tenement beneath the castle
Unseated on Arthur’s Seat; tobogganing down towards the Festival.
Classy sandstone facades. Did I hear of you running behind Eglantine Maxwell
Riding a pig down the Royal Mile; the mistress has grown wild.
All the way from Edinburgh to Leith, your skinny white legs, heather-clawed
Nay bother, we’ll meet in the middle.

My twenties, the Highlands will always call the Englishman
Striding among the grouse, ‘driven’ and you a famous poet now.
Me just starting out, writing up the red in tooth and claw...Kinrara, Tomintoul, above Aviemore
Remember how we would both ‘run about the braes and pulled the gowans fine’.
Those keen-eyed Keepers could run the length of the land; wains on the backs of bards
From the Cairngorms to Dumfries,
From Thurso to Skye
Loch Lomond to Loch Ness
The Western Isles to the Shetland Islands (stopping for a dram in Orkney!)
From Mull to Aberdeen
Glasgow to Dundee
Their sturdy legs, heather-clawed.
Nay bother. They’ll meet in the middle

My heart is breaking Robbie, The drive away will be long
Remembering chasing pigs around the pen at Knockengorick, that last season of play,
Nessy gave us a knowing wink; our jaws dropping wider for a hoard of words that could not...
(Or was that a distant MacDonald matriarch, latterly O’)
...and then we sever.

I jump off the London-bound train at Carlisle, and cross to the other side.
Running all the way from England to Scotland, Robbie
Your Jo’’ Our skinny young legs, heather-clawed
Nay bother, we’ll meet in the middle.